


Calling Phase

by F-117 Nighthawk (F117_Nighthawk)



Series: Keep it Real, Trust Your Dreams (and Soon You'll Stand Here Next to Me) [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: X-Wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole
Genre: Fever, Illnesses, Infection, M/M, Major Character Injury, Not Really Character Death, Secrets, Sickfic, a similar situation to mirax and wedge, and Iella's cannon tag still have antilles, but everyone but Wedge thinks Tycho's dead, but unfortunately for my tags winter doesn't have another last name apparently, except it's a tiny cut that got infected, idk what tycho and winter are here I think they're like. siblings-ish?, post that spederbike chase, this wasn't supposed to be this long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:54:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23904199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/F117_Nighthawk/pseuds/F-117%20Nighthawk
Summary: Two New Republic Intelligence agents, a smuggler turned mostly respectable Alliance friend, and two Rogue pilots do their best to help out Rogue Leader when Rogue Nine somehow manages to accidentally crash a speederbike directly into the safehouse.
Relationships: Tycho Celchu & Winter Celchu, Wedge Antilles & Mirax Terrik, Wedge Antilles & Winter Celchu, Wedge Antilles/Tycho Celchu
Series: Keep it Real, Trust Your Dreams (and Soon You'll Stand Here Next to Me) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719898
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Calling Phase

**Author's Note:**

> we're on to Wedge's Gamble my dudes. This is all inspired by that throwaway line about ryll tincture curing infections. The name is from sabacc, and my ideas for the coruscant scenes are probably all going to be sabacc themed

“Alright,  _ new _ home sweet home,” Iella told them as she ushered the others into the apartment. Wedge looked around, noting the distinct lack of windows this time. They were almost surely further into the undercity than they had been, which would make windows sort of useless, but he already found himself missing a view of the sky.

At least they couldn’t get shattered by a speederbike if they didn’t exist.

He rubbed his hand that wasn’t wrapped in bandages over weary eyes and slumped down onto one of the beds on the side of the room. Almost twenty four hours awake was not something he had wanted to repeat for a while, but such was military life. He shivered slightly in the cold of the room and wrapped his arms around himself. The position placed his hands under his arms and the pressure sent a stabbing pain through his bandaged hand. Wedge winced and bit back a sound.

“Here, lemme look at your hand,” Pash told him, having caught the wince, “we can better bandage it now.”

Wedge obliged, sticking his hand out to Pash’s waiting grip. Instead of taking it, Pash frowned at him. “Are you shivering?”

“Kinda cold, yeah.”

“Commander, it’s hotter than Chandrilla in here.”

He blinked. “No it’s not?”

With a frown and pinched eyebrows Pash grabbed his hand and started unwrapping the hastily wrapped scraps of cloth. Wedge winced at every movement that added or released pressure on his hand, and hissed as the last of the cloth was peeled away with what felt like half his skin. Pash’s eyes widened as he did so. “Oh sithspit. Winter?”

Winter, Iella, and Mirax were immediately hovering over Pash’s shoulders. Wedge’s hand was an angry red and the layer beginning to form over the cuts from the transparisteel wasn’t so much a scab as a layer of pus. 

The fact that his hand was most definitely infected didn’t really register with the sort of urgency Wedge saw it register with the other four. He stared at it for a moment, oddly fascinated with the unnatural coloring. “Huh.”

_ “Huh?” _ Mirax gaped at him,  _ “That’s _ your reaction?”

“I mean, I’ve seen worse. I'm friends with Hobbie.”

A hand reached out and pressed against his forehead; Wedge leaned out of its reach just too late. Winter ignored his glare, opting to gently take his wrist in her grip and study his hand. “He definitely has a fever. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything to treat this in here.”

“Great.”

She patted his arm sympathetically. “I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, it’s rest for you.”

* * *

A day later Mirax sighed and rubbed a hand along Wedge’s arm. His face was pale but for two spots of red that signaled to her his fever still hadn’t broken. Seeing him in uncomfortable sleep on the dingy bed of the secondary safehouse, face pinched and hands clenched into the sheets, reminded her too much of him after Yavin. 

The door to the safehouse whirred open and Iella and Pash entered. Pash huffed and placed the bags in his hands on the table, while Iella frowned and moved over to her. She gazed down at Wedge’s hands and pale face. “How is he?”

“Still not good. His fever at least hasn’t moved, but who knows how long that’s going to last. I’m worried we’re going to need a bacta tank if we don’t find some sort of treatment soon.”

“Winter?”

Winter shook her head. “No luck on that front. I’ve tried three different contacts, none of them had so much as a bacta patch. Getting medical supplies down here is like finding mynock repellant in a burnt-out asteroid.”

“I’m  _ definitely _ giving Corran a hard time when you let me see him.”

Mirax snorted. “I’ll join you, Iella.”

“I arranged a meeting with another vendor in a few days. They’re one of the people Tycho picked stuff up from when he was here and he told Intelligence they’re one of the best at procuring things like med supplies. Hopefully, they’ll be able to find me something before he ends up worse.”

“In the meantime,” Pash said, “food?”

The four of them ate the proffered Corellian nerf-burgers, but it tasted like ash in their mouths. Given time, Wedge would undoubtedly recover to full health on his own, but it was time they doubted they had. Without him, squadron morale would suffer, and their chance to finish this mission intact was down the gutter. “We should get him to eat something.”

“In all honesty,” Pash muttered, glaring down at his burger, “I think these things might make him worse.”

“Fries?”

Iella smiled sheepishly. “I uh, may have eaten them all on the way back.”

_ “Iella!”  _ Mirax glared daggers at her over her burger.

“They were good! Much better than these burgers.”

Any further discussion was cut off by the insistent beep that started through the room. Smuggler, pilot, and Intelligence agents froze, looking at each other, before slowly turning towards the source of the sound.

Wedge’s commlink sat on the table, beeping a distinctive two-tone. 

* * *

“Wedge. Wedge, come on, your comm’s beeping.”

Wedge moaned and turned over, trying to block out Mirax shaking his shoulder. He was  _ cold _ and tired and really, whatever it was could wait until he was somewhere a hell of a lot warmer than here.

_ “Wedge. _ Wake  _ up _ and answer your kriffing comm.”

He blinked bleary eyes open, ready to glare Mirax into silence and go back to the blessed warmth of sleep, but the sound of his comm finally registered in his ears. The two-tone snapped him awake, more alert than he had been since the infection and fever first really set in. Fully in Commander Antilles mode, he pushed himself into a sitting position on shaky arms and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Mirax handed him the comm before he even asked for it, still beeping.

The distinctive beep meant it was a message from High Command. 

Wedge’s shaky hands protested the motion needed to put the password in the holographic keypad the small cylinder projected, but he managed to get it without causing the comm to explode in his face. It hummed for a moment, accepting the decryption password and churning out a series of characters that resolved into the message where the keyboard had been. He skimmed the first sentence before any of its content registered in his brain. He had to read it again, and then a third time before he truly believed it. “Oh Force,” he breathed, as shaky as his arms.

“Wedge?” Someone’s hand was on his shoulder, but it was barely a comfort to his whirling thoughts.

“Zsinj bombed Noquivzor.”

* * *

A few hours later found Wedge rubbing at his eyes. The datapad in front of him was swimming, coordinates and words jumbling into a mash he could no longer make sense of. He’d watched Winter retreat into herself even more than usual over the course of the hurried planning session, a defense mechanism much like the one he was indulging in: work. 

He knew, in the back of his mind, that they were doing it for different reasons, and he hated it. He hated that he couldn’t tell her what he knew, that what she feared could not possibly be true, but the fact that Ackbar had told him the invasion was being accelerated meant he was going to need that sabacc card. As much as he wanted to tell her, he couldn’t.

“I think it’s time for a break,” Pash said. Wedge knew he was staring at him and honestly couldn’t blame him. He probably looked like a wreck. The adrenaline rush from the message had faded, leaving him back to feeling like death warmed over. Part of him wished he could go back to sleep, but a larger part of him wished for his partner’s familiar voice. 

Winter sighed. “I need to go make sure Erisi’s holed up in the right place, and we need more supplies if we’re going to be bringing others in here. Commander, any opinions on who?”

“Corran.” That much he knew off the cuff, but it took him a moment to figure out who else through the haze. “I suppose we’re going to be needing Thyne, which means Vorru too. If you can get any of the, uh, what were they called?”

“Alien Combine?”

“Yeah, them. Find some of their leaders. I bet they’re still holed up wherever Corran left them. Make us a militia of some sort.”

Iella pursed her lips. “Are you sure all those people would even want to work together?”

“Against the Empire? Sure. But if for some reason that doesn’t work, I have a sabacc card up my sleeve.” He said the last part looking directly at Winter, hoping that somehow she’d pick up on his meaning. “Mirax, find the rest of the squadron and meet up with Winter when she’s done. Pash, Iella, you’re in charge of finding the Black Sun gang.”

Winter frowned at him, seemingly counting off the teams. “You sure? You’re still pretty sick.”

“I think I can handle myself for a few hours.”

“Commander--”

“Winter. Please?”

He turned his best puppy-dog eyes on her. He  _ was _ sick, he knew that, but the one thing he wanted he couldn’t do with all of them in the apartment. Given the circumstances and the fact that he was  _ sick, _ he figured he could be allowed that small indulgence. She sighed, running a hand through her hair. “Fine. But you have a blaster in reaching range, and I’d prefer it if you don’t fall asleep.”

“Thank you.”

The safehouse turned into bustling chaos a few minutes after that as each team prepared to leave. Mirax pointedly placed some food and a cup of the cleanest water they could find on the table next to his bed, and Winter equally pointedly slapped a blaster and a few power packs next to it. “Tycho would find a way to kill me if I let you get hurt,” she told him softly. Her voice held the pain in her heart for the first time since he’d picked up the comm. It took all the strength he had left to not pull her down next to him and tell her right then and there, mission and secrecy be damned.

And then they were gone, and he was alone with nothing for company but the bugs in the walls. 

Wedge forced himself to eat the nerf-burger and down the water before he reached for his commlink again. He hesitated a moment, a spike of illogical fear driving its way through his heart that the one he wanted to answer wouldn’t. With a sigh, he leaned back against the wall and twisted the bottom of the commlink to the new frequency. “Leader to Null, you around?”

A few heartbeats later, the response came, clear and commanding over the airwaves. “Null here, Leader. What do you need?”

The tension in Wedge’s chest dissipated and he slumped down the wall. “I just needed to hear your voice. I know we agreed only emergencies, but…”

“What happened?” The voice was softer now, tone comforting and low.

“Everyone’s favorite warlord bombed home base. I had to tell Targeter, Nine’s friend, Four, and Myra, and for a moment--for a moment I forgot, and I couldn’t--” he was crying now, tears he hadn’t allowed himself while he had to be in charge, and he so desperately wished he had Tycho next to him, instead of planetary sectors of Imperial troops away. 

“Oh, love,” Tycho murmured, “I’m still here, still alive.” He continued sweet soothing nothings as Wedge’s breath hitched and eventually calmed. 

“Thanks.”

“You alright? Physically, I mean, your voice sounds rough and not like it’s just from crying.”

“Uh,” Wedge winced, having almost forgotten about that in light of hearing Tycho’s voice, “I may have a fever from a slight infection.”

_ “Wed--love.” _

“Nine accidentally slammed a speederbike that was trailing him through our safehouse window. I caught a few shards and medical supplies are a little hard to come by down here.”

Tycho sighed and Wedge could perfectly envision the expression on his face. Worry, exasperation with their squadmate, frustration he couldn’t be there. “Targeter will find some. In the meantime, you need to rest.”

“I’m trying. Targeter and Myra have been forcing me, but it’s about to get rather hard to rest. You haven’t gotten a chance to look at the message yet, have you.”

“Do tell.”

“In light of our favorite warlord, Command’s moved up the timetable, and now  _ we’ve _ got the job.”

“Oh wonderful.” A faint noise echoed from Tycho’s end of the comm, and Wedge heard him telling Emtrey something before turning back. “I have to go, ‘Trey and I are picking up some parts in a few minutes, but I’ll talk to you soon, okay? I’ll be here when you need me.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too. Null out.”

Wedge clicked his commlink back to the other frequency, placed it on the table next to the blaster, and finally let the hazy feeling draw him back into uncomfortable rest.

* * *

“Commander?” Pash called as he walked into the safehouse, hoping the Commander was still awake, and then, “Oh kriff. Iella!”

Wedge was definitely not awake, and looked significantly worse than they had left him. He was leaning against the wall, chin on his chest, cheeks red against an even paler face, shivering in his sleep. Hurriedly, Pash ran a spare cloth under the sink and wrung it out as Iella stepped into the room. “Help me get him lying down,” she told him.

Together they maneuvered Rogue Squadron’s commander under a heap of blankets and Pash lay the wet cloth over Wedge’s burning forehead. They stood for a moment, looking down at their miserable Commander. “We should never have left him alone.”

“What’s done is done. Now we just need to focus on making sure he doesn’t get any worse.”

The four of them took turns watching over Wedge for the next few days. His fever slowly climbed as the hours wore on, stealing moments of lucidity while the others tried frantically to find anything that would help. 

Mirax was the one sitting next to him when Wedge blinked his eyes groggily open again. “M’ra?”

“Hey, Wedge,” she whispered. His eyes were glassy with fever, barely focused on her, but the very fact that he recognized her was a good sign. “How’re you feeling?”

“‘M cold.”

She glanced at the four blankets tucked around him and his flushed face. “That’d be the fever.”

“Wh’r’s Tych’?”

Winter clearly heard his pained whisper as she looked up and met Mirax’s eyes. Her heart cracked in half as she tried to figure out what to tell him. “Tycho’s… Tycho’s not here right now, but he loves you, and he wants you to make sure you get better, okay?”

“Mm.” His eyes lowered heavily as his exhausted and wrecked body dragged him back to sleep.

She reached out and brushed sticky hair away from his eyes, biting her lip. “He loved you so kriffing much. Hang on for him.”

Winter’s hand landed gently on her shoulder. “I’m going to meet my contact. You okay with him for a bit?”

Mirax nodded. “Not really much I can do for him anyway.”

“Just being with him is enough.” Winter patted her shoulder before picking up a bag and slinking out the door. Mirax sighed and shifted so she could run a hand through Wedge’s hair with a datapad on her lap. The action was as soothing to her as she knew it would be to him if he was awake. Even in delirious sleep, the contact smoothed the pained look on his face out just slightly. 

Mirax was startled from parsing through their intelligence collection by the door slamming open and Winter rushing inside. “I have it,” she managed, breathless like she had run through half of Coruscant to get back. Mirax wouldn’t have been surprised if she actually had. 

“Have what?”

“Ryll tincture.”

* * *

Wedge flexed his hands, happy to have the bandages off. Even though he’d spent the period with the bandages mostly asleep and reportedly somewhat delirious, he remembered enough that being able to move his fingers freely was a welcome relief. 

“You’re in a better mood.”

Wedge managed to smile up at Winter. “Have to take pleasure in the little things, sometimes.”

She sat down next to him on the bed, back ramrod straight and eyes looking anywhere but him. “Wedge.”

He turned to her, his own face more serious. “Winter.”

“When I--when I picked up the ryll tincture, the contact that gave me it didn’t even ask if it was what I needed. They gave it to me, winked, and told me a message.”

Wedge hesitated, a suspicion in his mind that he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to confirm. “What was it?”

“They said to tell Leader, which I take to mean you, that it was a gift from your sabacc card.”

He bit down on a smile. “Oh.”

Winter turned her gaze on him, meeting his eyes and locking them in place. “Your sabacc card is Tycho, isn’t it.”

“I can neither confirm or deny that, Winter.”

Her posture sagged and a small relieved smile flickered across her face. “You forget I know you’re saying that because you’re terrible at lying.”

“Also cannot confirm or deny that.”

“Just… promise me you know what you’re doing?”

Wedge shifted to easier look at her. “Winter, I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m acting on what years of experience in this rebellion against tyranny have taught me. Those experiences have never let me down.”

Winter studied him for a moment before nodding and standing. “I trust you, Wedge. I have to go get Corran, and I know he wants to speak with you before the meeting. Get some food before we throw ourselves into the next Rogue Squadron mess, alright?”

He gave her a smile. “Sir yes sir.” 


End file.
